The Man Behind the Bars

by Winifred Louise Taylor

"The house is all open and any one could go in and help himself. I wish you would ask Katy to lock the front door." The man bowed, and we drove on.

When we returned Katy reported that a strange man had come to the kitchen door and told her that the mistress wished her to lock the front door. She left the man while she did this and found him waiting when she came back. Then he asked her for something to eat, stating that he was just out of prison, and wished to see Miss —— (mentioning my name). The cook gave him a lunch and made an appointment for me to see him next day.

Katy did not resent the man's being taken for her Joe, for she noticed the resemblance, but there was reproach in her tone as she added: "But you know Joe always dresses up when he comes to see me."

At the appointed hour the man came again, bringing me a message from an acquaintance, a fellow convict who had been his cell-mate in prison. He did not refer to the fact that had he chosen he might have taken advantage of the information received from my mother, but no better plan for a robbery could have been devised than the circumstance that fell ready to his hand.

But of all the ex-convicts employed at various times on our place the one in whom the family took the greatest interest was George—his other name does not matter because it was changed so often.

One Sunday morning I found George the only prisoner in our county jail. He was a thief awaiting trial at the next term of court several weeks ahead. He had "shifty" eyes and a sceptical smile, was thin, unkempt, and altogether unprepossessing; but I did not think so much of that as of his loneliness. He was reserved concerning himself but seemed to have some education and a taste for reading, so I supplied him with books from the library and called on him once or twice a week; but I made slow progress with acquaintance, and one day George said to me:

"I understand perfectly why it is that you come to see me and bring me things to read; you think that you will gain a higher place in heaven when you die." In other words, George thought that I was using him as a stepping-stone for my own advantage—his sceptical smile was not for nothing.

How I disarmed his suspicions I do not know; but in the weeks that followed before he was taken to prison we came to know each other very well. The prison life was hard on George, so hard that when I first saw him in the convict stripes I did not know him, so emaciated had he become; and I was startled when his smile disclosed his identity. Clearly he would be fit for no honest work when released from prison. He made no complaint—he did not need to, for his appearance told the story only too well. George was an insignificant-looking man, only one of the hundreds consigned to that place of punishment, and by mere chance had been given work far beyond his strength. When I called the warden's attention to George he was immediately transferred to lighter work, and was in better condition when I saw him next time.

And then we had some long and serious talks about his way of life, which he invariably defended on the score that he would rather be "a downright honest thief" than to get possession of other people's property under cover of the law, or to grind the poor in order to pile up more money than any one could honestly possess. George thought that he really believed all business men ready to take any unfair advantage of others so long as their own safety was not endangered.